*
The family camp has come to the end of its life. Dita Adler and her mother get ready to pass through the filter of Dr. Mengele, who will decide if they live or die. They’ve been ordered to line up according to their huts after their breakfast slop. All the inhabitants of the camp are agitated: People move about on edge and go back and forth, using up what might be their last few moments. Husbands and wives run to each other to say good-bye. Many couples meet in the middle of the Lagerstrasse, halfway between their respective huts. There are hugs, kisses, tears, and even reproaches. There is still the odd person who says, “If we’d gone to North America when I told you.…” They all spend what could be their final moments in their own way. Before the indifferent gaze of the SS soldiers who have arrived in the camp, the Kapos angrily blow their whistles to order everyone back to their own barracks.
Mrs. Turnovská comes over to wish Liesl good luck.
“Luck, Mrs. Turnovská?” says another of the women from their group of bunks. “What we need is a miracle!”
Dita walks a few steps away from the bustle of people nervously wandering up and down. She senses that someone has stopped right behind her; she can even feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“Don’t turn around,” comes the order.
Dita, so accustomed to orders, stands rooted to the spot without looking behind her.
“You’ve been asking about Hirsch’s death, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know things … but don’t turn around!”
“The only thing they’ve told me so far is that he was afraid, but I know that the fear of dying wouldn’t have given him cold feet.”
“You’re right about that. I saw the list of inmates the SS were going to reclaim and remove from the quarantine camp to be brought back to the family camp. Hirsch was on that list. He wasn’t going to die.”
“Then why did he commit suicide?”
“You’re wrong about that,” comes the reply, but there’s hesitation in his voice for the first time, as if he doesn’t know how much to tell. “Hirsch didn’t commit suicide.”
Dita wants to know the full story, and she turns toward her enigmatic speaker. But as she does, he breaks into a quick run through the crowd of people. Dita recognizes him: It’s the errand boy from the hospital block.
She’s about to set off in pursuit when her mother grabs her by the shoulder.
“We have to line up!”
Their Kapo has started to lay about with her stick, and the guards are doing the same with their guns. There’s no time. Dita reluctantly gets in line next to her mother.
What does it mean that Fredy Hirsch didn’t commit suicide? So then what? He didn’t die in the way they told her? She thinks maybe the boy has invented his story. But why would he do that? It was all a joke, and that’s why he ran off when she turned around? It’s possible. But something tells her that’s not the case: There was no smile in his eyes in that instant when she looked at him. She’s now more convinced than ever that what happened in the quarantine camp that afternoon bears no resemblance to what people in the Resistance are saying. So why would they lie? Maybe even they didn’t know the ultimate truth of what actually happened.
Too many questions at a time when the answers might come too late. There are thousands of people in the family camp, but they all have to pass in front of the compass-needle eye of the mad Dr. Mengele, which points toward life or death.
Groups have been going into and out of Block 31 for hours, and nobody knows for sure what’s happening. They’ve been given their lunchtime soup, and they’ve been allowed to sit on the ground, but tiredness and nervousness caused by the wait have left their mark on the women in Dita’s group. And rumors are rife, of course. The healthier inmates are being separated from the ill and the unproductive ones. Some of the women comment that Dr. Mengele is deciding who lives and who dies with his customary indifference. The male and female prisoners have to enter the hut naked so that the captain can examine them. Someone says that Mengele has at least had the decency to have the men and the women go in separately. They say he doesn’t even look at the naked women in a lustful way, that he looks at everyone with absolute indifference, that he occasionally yawns, tired and bored with his task as examiner of human beings.
A cordon of SS soldiers controls access to Block 31. The groups who won’t go through selection that day stroll tensely around the camp. The teachers try to keep the children occupied until the last minute. Some groups sit behind the huts and try to organize guessing games or whatever else they can come up with. Even snooty Markéta is playing Drop the Handkerchief with some of her girls. Each time she picks up the handkerchief, she furtively lifts it to her face to wipe away her tears. Her eleven-year-old girls, who are running around full of life, arguing and fighting over who managed to touch the hanky first … will the Germans consider any of them old enough to be part of the workforce, or will they kill them all?
Finally, Dita is lined up with the women from her hut in front of Block 31. They make them undress and put their clothes on top of huge piles, which are starting to form a mountain range of rags on the surface of the mud.
She feels more concern for the nude body of her mother on public display than for her own. She turns away so she won’t see Liesl’s wrinkled breasts, her exposed sex, the bones sticking out from under her skin. Some women have their arms crossed in an attempt to hide their intimate parts as best they can, but most don’t care anymore. There are small groups of SS soldiers on either side of the lines. They are at ease and off duty, and they spend the morning eyeing the naked women maliciously and making loud comments about the ones they fancy. The bodies are squalid, their ribs are more curved than their hips, and there are girls who have barely a wisp of pubic hair between their legs, but the soldiers are desperate for some distraction, and they are so used to seeing the skeletal thinness of the inmates that they cheer on the women as if they were luscious beauties.